Pirate Bay officials think it is the overzealous Swedish government officials that will be walking the legal plank

The Pirate Bay's enemies are circling it like a pack of
hungry sharks, waiting
for it to slip. First there is the Swedish
government assault, led by prosecutor Håkan Roswall, who seeks to press
charges against The Pirate Bay before January 31, 2008. The planned
charges will be against multiple pirate bay admins for allegedly supporting
copyright infringement on a massive scale.

On top of the Swedish government, The Pirate Bay has the rock funkster Prince
(formerly known as the Artist formerly known as Prince), showering Purple
Rain on The Pirate Bay's parade of piracy. The colorful icon
announced that he was going to "reclaim the internet" by attacking
The Pirate Bay, eBay, and YouTube, which he sees as a triad of sinister copyright
infringement. The royal rocker is not going it alone either; he has
enlisted the help of internet guns-for-hire Web Sheriff and Web Sheriff
president John Giacobbi in its bid to take down these three offenders.

Completing its array of enemies is the International Federation of the
Phonographic Industry, who is rather nonplussed over The Pirate Bay's domain name
takeover of ifpi.com. They have filed
an official complaint with domain name arbitrator World Intellectual
Property Organization (WIPO), in hopes of reclaiming their lost bounty, and are
mulling over additional legal action against the site. The Pirate Bay
faces a heady battle against the WIPO complaint, as the IFPI works closely with
the WIPO and both organizations cite close cooperation on their respective
webpages. The IFPI insist that this feel good friendship will not affect
the status of the complaint, as the WIPO will allegedly use impartial legal and
knowledgeable professional counsel to make its decision.

Not so says The Pirate Bay admin Peter Sunde, one of the two people currently
named in the pending Swedish charges. "I'm quite sure it will not be a
fair arbitration. IFPI and WIPO are in cooperation with each other (just look
at WIPO's homepage where they say they work close together with, for instance,
IFPI)," Sunde says.

Sunde and other admins at The Pirate Bay have been stalked recently by strange
cars, with passengers snapping pictures. Some think these not-so-subtle
followers are under the pay of Prince, while others speculate that the Swedish
government is using them to try to gather up some sort of evidence.

Curiously, Carl Lundström, who at one time provided bandwidth to The Pirate
Bay, is the other person who the Swedish government has currently announced its
intention to charge. Lundström only had a casual relationship with the
site, but some as he is a famed Swedish political extremist; some see the
charges as the Swedish government's way of striking back at him, for his past
stands.

Peter Sunde, in a recent
interview with Ars Technica, was confident that it would be Swedish
government who would be swimming with the fish in terms of a legal
outcome. He stated of Swedish prosecutor Håkan Roswall and the case, "I'm
quite confident we're gonna win and I was expecting this to happen.
Roswall is also a very biased man, so I'm glad to take it to court instead of
letting him dig around my personal life for no apparent reason. Actually, it's
kinda funny."

And that's just the spirit one would expect out of the officials of the
carefree, yet quixotically feisty site which early this year sought to buy its own
island nation to avoid the mounting legal issues. It’s clear that
many parties are eager to bring the fight to The Pirate Bay, but it looks like
The Pirate Bay is equally eager to fight back.

"We basically took a look at this situation and said, this is bullshit." -- Newegg Chief Legal Officer Lee Cheng's take on patent troll Soverain